SPECIAL PROMOTIONS SECTION

People on the Move

Michael A. Tyllas, U.S. Railroad Retirement Board

The U.S. Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) has named Michael A. Tyllas as its Director of Programs.

As Director of Programs, Dr. Tyllas will be responsible for overseeing all operations to process and pay benefits administered by the agency. He will also be a member of the RRB's Executive Committee, which is responsible for day-to-day operations of the agency and for making policy recommendations to the three-member Board.

At the time of his appointment, Dr. Tyllas had been serving as an Administrative Officer for the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., since January 2013. Prior to that, he held two positions with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) in Washington, serving as Deputy Assistant Commissioner for General Supplies and Services in the Federal Acquisition Service since March 2012, and as GSA's Deputy Chief People Officer starting in September 2011.

Dr. Tyllas also served as Regional Commissioner for the Great Lakes Region in Chicago of the GSA's Federal Acquisition Service from January 2010 to September 2011, and Director of the Administrative Operations Service for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from April 2007 to January 2010 in Washington. This latter position represented his initial appointment into the Senior Executive Service of the federal government.

Before that, he held several positions in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), including Director of the Electronic Commerce Business Solutions Office (November 2004 to April 2007), Executive Director of the Service and Distribution Center (September 2001 to November 2004), and Special Assistant to the Executive Director of the National Acquisition Center (August 1999 to September 2001).

Dr. Tyllas also spent almost 5 years at VA medical centers in Michigan from 1994 to 1999. Most of that time he served as Associate Director and Chief Operating Officer at the Battle Creek VA Medical Center, but he also spent 8 months as Acting Medical Center Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Aleda E. Lutz VA Medical Center in Saginaw.

A native of Chicago, Dr. Tyllas received a Ph.D. from the Jane Addams School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago in social welfare planning, policy and administration (1991). He also attended Loyola University Chicago, where he received a master's degree in social work (1980) and a bachelor's degree in psychology (1977).

He is married to Thomas E. Jones and they currently live in Bethesda, Maryland.

His new appointment is effective March 8. He will take the place of Martha Barringer, who retired in December 2014 following 36 years of service to the RRB.

An independent Federal agency headquartered in Chicago, the RRB pays almost $11.9 billion a year in benefits under the Federal Railroad Retirement and Unemployment Insurance Acts to the nation's railroad workers and their families.